Tag: The Fog

GUEST MOVIE REVIEW: The Fog

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This is the first in a five-part series by author CM Saunders where he discusses with us his top five 80s horror picks. I hope it encourages you to either watch (or maybe re-watch) some old classics. I know it really helped me to get some of my Halloween spirit back this year, and since Halloween isn’t over until I say it’s over, you’ve got plenty more time to sit back and enjoy these.

Top 5 Eighties Horror Flicks #5

Title: The Fog
Year of Release: 1980
Director: John Carpenter
Length: 89 minutes
Starring: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hal Holbrook, Janet Leigh

Any horror movie aficionado of a certain age will tell you that the eighties were a special time. Yes, some of the music was questionable and the fashion sense largely atrocious. Plus, there was no internet meaning that you had to physically go to shops to buy things. There were no cellphones, either, so you usually had to go by yourself. Crazy, I know. But the movies were something else. What they lacked in special effects and CGI they more than made up for in wit and atmosphere. That’s why I’ve decided to mark this Halloween spooktacular with a rundown of the top 5 horror flicks of the decade. You’ll probably be familiar with most of them. If not, seek them out immediately. Despite the big shoulder pads and spiky hair, you won’t be sorry.

One more thing before we get started; this list, as with most lists, is entirely subjective. If you don’t like it, make your own damn list.

Following the success of Halloween two years earlier, John Carpenter was considered hot shit in Hollywood and virtually given free license to do what he wanted on the Fog, albeit on a modest budget. He didn’t disappoint. Being sandwiched between Halloween and Escape from New York the Fog is often overlooked, but remains one of the jewels in carpenter’s crown. 

As the Californian coastal town of Antonio Bay nears its hundredth anniversary, paranormal activity begins to rocket. When a huge chunk of masonry falls out of a wall in his church, town priest Father Malone (Holbrook) finds his grandfather’s journal hidden in the alcove. When he reads it, he uncovers a terrible secret. The original townsfolk, led by Malone’s grandfather, deliberately sank a clipper ship, the Elizabeth Dane, and plundered it for gold, which was then used to establish the town and build the church. Cut to the present day, and a fishing boat is out at sea when it is engulfed by a mysterious glowing fog. You guessed it, there’s something in there. Specifically, it’s the Elizabeth Dane, and her very angry (and very dead) crew.

The heart and soul of San Antonio is the local radio station, seemingly managed by Stevie Wayne (Barbeau) all on her lonesome. The radio station is set up in an old lighthouse, meaning Stevie is in pole position to see the glowing fog, which suspiciously moves against the wind, approach the town. Weatherman Dan helpfully calls to tell her about it, but unfortunately, Weatherman Dan could make a strong case for being the stupidest man in the world and he is dead moments later. Instead of just calling it a night and going home, Stevie then takes to the airwaves to implore any passing strangers to go to her house, address provided, to save her son who is stuck there with the soon-to-be-dead babysitter. A short time later, she apparently gives up on him altogether and shifts her attention to saving the villagers instead who have gathered for a Centenary celebration. In an apparent attempt to help the crew of the Elizabeth Dane find them quicker, she tells them all to gather in the church where an epic showdown takes place.  

As well as writing, directing, and even pulling off a brief cameo role, John Carpenter also composed the musical score. I didn’t notice the significance until I sat down and actually listened to it. It consists of the usual deep, ominous, brooding tones, which are then mimicked by lighter tones. Same chords, different tones. When I thought about it, that effect conjured up the notion of being stalked or followed, which I imagine to be an effective tool to use on the subconscious whether intentional or otherwise. The music is instrumental (boom!) in making the Fog such an atmospheric, satisfying, well-made chiller. The plot is ultimately a tad predictable, but there’s just enough gore and jump scares to keep things interesting.

The fate of the Elizabeth Dane is said to be based on that of an actual wrecking which took place off the coast of California near the town of Goleta in the 19th century. This particular kind of skulduggery appears to have been mercifully rare in America. However, it was a lot more prevalent in Britain (LINK). John Carpenter also claimed to be partly inspired by a visit to Stonehenge with his co-writer/producer (and then-girlfriend), Debra Hill while in England promoting Assault on Precinct 13 in 1977. They visited the site in the late afternoon, and saw an eerie fog in the distance. Though carpenter and Hill worked together on The Fog, Halloween and several other projects, by the time the Fog came to be filmed Carpenter was married to Adrienne Barbeau. Unusually, both Carpenter and Hill were involved in the 2005 remake starring Selma Blair and Tom Welling, which managed to stay more-or-less faithful to the original.  

Trivia Corner:

Worried the film might flop, the distribution company, AVCO Embassy Pictures, spent around $3 million on advertising and promotion, mostly on expensive TV, radio and print ads. They also spent a considerable amount installing fog machines in the lobbies of cinemas where the film was showing. That was almost three times the amount the film cost to make. However, the gamble paid off as it generated over $21 million at the Box Office.

On the 13th of every month I put a fresh spin on a classic movie in my RetView series over at my blog. Go here for the archive.

Boo-graphy: Christian Saunders, a constant reader who writes fiction as C.M. Saunders, is a freelance journalist and editor from south Wales. His work has appeared in almost 100 magazines, ezines and anthologies worldwide including Fortean Times, the Literary Hatchet, ParABnormal, Fantastic Horror, Haunted MTL, Feverish Fiction and Crimson Streets, and he has held staff positions at several leading UK magazines ranging from Staff Writer to Associate Editor. His books have been both traditionally and independently published.

The fifth volume in my X series featuring ten (X, geddit?) slices of twisted horror and dark fiction plucked from the blood-soaked pages of ParABnormal magazine, Demonic Tome, Haunted MTL, Fantasia Diversity, and industry-defining anthologies including 100 Word Horrors, The Corona Book of Ghost Stories, DOA 3, and Trigger Warning: Body Horror.

Meet the local reporter on an assignment which takes him far beyond the realms of reality, join the fishing trip that goes sideways when a fish unlike any other is hooked, and find out the hidden cost of human trafficking in China. Along the way, meet the hiker who stumbles across something unexpected in the woods, the office worker who’s life is inexorably changed after a medical drug trial goes wrong, and many more.

Also features extensive notes, and original artwork by Stoker award-winning Greg Chapman.

Table of Contents:
Demon Tree
Revenge of the Toothfish
Surzhai
The Sharpest Tool
Something Bad
Down the Road
Coming Around
Where a Town Once Stood
The Last Night Shift
Subject #270374
Afterword

X X2 X3 X4 X5

GUEST MOVIE REVIEW: Lisa Morton

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Halloween III: Season of the Witch
By: Lisa Morton

Let’s get one big thing out of the way first: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) is possibly the worst sequel ever made. I don’t mean that in the sense that this is the worst movie ever made that followed another movie, but rather that this is not even remotely a sequel to Halloween (1978) or Halloween II (1981). This movie has no slasher in a William Shatner mask (except for a couple of scenes of the first movie glimpsed on televisions), no courageous Laurie Strode frantically repurposing a wire coat hanger into a weapon. Making this movie part of the Halloween franchise is about like making a Mad Max movie set in a scenic utopia where everyone walks.

Aside from that, there’s really a lot to love about Halloween III: Season of the Witch, especially if you’re one of those who (like me) start cruising stores in July for Halloween stuff. Unlike the other films in John Carpenter’s Michael Myers series, this one is not merely set around and finally on Halloween, but explores the deeper meaning of the holiday itself.

In case you’ve either skipped seeing Halloween III because of the bad press or haven’t seen it since its original release in 1982, here’s what it’s all about: a small-town doctor, Dan Challis (Tom Atkins), is working the late-shift at the hospital eight days before Halloween when he finds that one of his patients has had his face pulled apart. When the dead guy’s comely daughter Ellie (Stacey Nelkin) shows up and decides to investigate Dad’s murder, the good doctor accompanies her to the small Northern California town of Santa Mira, where Dad had been dealing with the Silver Shamrock Company, producers of Halloween masks. Silver Shamrock’s owner Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy) is a mysterious Irish toymaker who is more than he seems. Before long, Dan and Ellie are surrounded by a number of bizarre deaths, all somehow related to a five-ton piece of Stonehenge kept in Silver Shamrock’s basement, surrounded by scientists and high-tech (for 1982) equipment. It’s finally up to Dan to escape Cochran and tell the world that the immensely popular Silver Shamrock masks will unleash more than just a lot of candy.

So, where’s the title witch? Okay, yeah… Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a double-fail as a title because there’s no Michael Myers AND there’s no witch. What there is instead is Conal Cochran, who is known as the ultimate practical joker and who tells Dan that he was around when Halloween was still called Samhain and “the hills ran red.” The first screenwriter on Halloween III was mad genius Nigel Kneale, the British writer who not only wrote the terrifying Quatermass and the Pit (known in the U.S. as Five Million Years to Earth), but even invented a now-accepted paranormal investigation theory in his 1972 television movie The Stone Tape (“stone tape theory” speculates that some objects or structures can record traumatic events and replay them). Producer Debra Hill asked for a story that combined ancient witchcraft and modern technology, and Kneale was brought in to write the first draft but he ended up being unhappy with the gore added later and had his name removed from the credits. Kneale’s influence is plainly still there… but, sadly, watered down. In his draft Cochran was an ancient demon; in the final film, his nature is so ambiguous – is he a trickster spirit? A sorcerer? A Druid? Just a creepy old dude? – that it deprives his character of a shot at real iconic horror stardom.

Halloween III certainly has other problems. It was Tommy Lee Wallace’s first directing gig (he would go on to make the It television miniseries with Tim Curry as Pennywise), and he has a bad habit throughout the film of holding on his actors so long that you can see them actually wondering what they should be doing. Tom Atkins is always a reliable and likeable actor, but his character here is a doctor who drinks and smokes too much, slaps his nurse on the ass, and asks Ellie how old she is after they have sex (hey, at least he’s not a typical hero). The editing is lazy, and the story takes too long to get going.

But here’s what’s great about Halloween III: it’s Weird with a capital W. Weird as in, full-on go-for-broke crazy. Name another movie that incorporates 18th-century clockwork automata, Jerusalem crickets, loving shots of latex masks being produced, a fake living room set in a lead-lined laboratory, a heroine whose last name is Grimbridge, a reference to Samhain, a woman whose face is (very artistically) fried by an energy beam… well, you get the idea. Buried beneath all this wackiness is some interesting commentary about consumer culture, especially about how it has created a middle class that is happy to plant its children in front of a television while the parents are otherwise engaged. The Silver Shamrock commercial jingle, heard throughout the film, limns an American society obsessed with advertising, even at the expense of protecting its own children. Halloween III is one of those few films that doesn’t just threaten children but shows one being graphically killed, while the parents attempt not to save the child but to flee.

It’s probably no coincidence that Halloween III, which John Carpenter co-produced and also co-wrote, is intensely cynical and ultimately nihilistic, because it was released in 1982, the same year Carpenter directed The Thing. Although in some respects it’s closer to Carpenter’s 1980 gem The Fog – they share the same small Northern California coastal town setting – it absolutely reflects the “we’re all doomed” aesthetic of The Thing.

It also happily wallows in Halloween-ness. First are the three Silver Shamrock masks – a jack-o’-lantern, a skull, and a witch – which we get to see in the factory, in stores stocked full of Halloween goods, and on kids parading about the streets in costume, engaged in trick or treat. The plot’s meticulous build toward the 31st – giving us a seasonal countdown – raises the holiday to an appropriate level of importance. And even Cochran’s undefined nature could arguably be a comment on the deeper mysteries surrounding the history of Halloween.

If you’ve never seen Halloween III: Season of the Witch, consider giving it a spin this October. Go in knowing it’s neither a perfect film nor a classic slasher and you might find other, stranger pleasures here to enjoy instead. Just don’t blame me if that Silver Shamrock jingle gets stuck in your head for weeks after.

Boo-graphy: Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, Bram Stoker Award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.”  She has published four novels, 150 short stories, and three books on the history of Halloween. Her recent releases include Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction from Groundbreaking Female Writers 1852-1923 (co-edited with Leslie S. Klinger) and Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances; her latest short stories appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2020, Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, and In League with Sherlock Holmes. Her most recent book is the collection Night Terrors & Other Tales. Lisa lives in Los Angeles and online.

From Halloween expert Morton, a level-headed and entertaining history of our desire and attempts to hold conversations with the dead.
 
Calling the Spirits investigates the eerie history of our conversations with the dead, from necromancy in Homer’s Odyssey to the emergence of Spiritualism—when Victorians were entranced by mediums and the seance was born. Among our cast are the Fox sisters, teenagers surrounded by “spirit rappings”; Daniel Dunglas Home, the “greatest medium of all time”; Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose unlikely friendship was forged, then riven, by the afterlife; and Helen Duncan, the medium whose trial in 1944 for witchcraft proved more popular to the public than news about the war. The book also considers Ouija boards, modern psychics, and paranormal investigations, and is illustrated with engravings, fine art (from beyond), and photographs. Hugely entertaining, it begs the question: is anybody there . . . ?

An abused child finds comfort in the friendship of Frankenstein’s monster…a near-future Halloween party becomes an act of global terrorism…one of the world’s wealthiest men goes in search of his fate as he rots from within…Hans Holbein’s famed “Dance of Death” engravings are revealed to be an instruction manual…a man trapped on an isolated road confronts both a terrifying creature and the legacy of his tough-as-nails grandfather…

Night Terrors and Other Tales is the first major collection to gather together twenty of Lisa Morton’s finest short stories (chosen by the author herself). During a career that has spanned more than three decades, she has produced work that has been hailed as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening” (the American Library Association’s Readers Advisory Guide to Horror).

If you’ve never encountered Lisa Morton’s work before, you’ll find out why Famous Monsters called her “one of the best writers in dark fiction today.” If you’re already a fan, this collection will offer up a chance to revisit these acclaimed and award-winning stories. You’ll also find a new story here, written just for this collection: “Night Terrors” reveals ordinary people trying to cope with extraordinary and terrifying dreams that have spread like a plague.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: C.M. Saunders

megHan

Meghan: Welcome back to the Halloween Extravaganza. It’s always wonderful to have you here at Meghan’s (Haunted) House of Books. What is your favorite part of Halloween?

Christian: The fact that for a few days each year, everyone turns into mad horror fiends and I don’t appear quite so weird. Afterwards, though, most people go back to being normal and I just stay weird.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween tradition?

Christian: The movies! Okay, I watch horror movies all year round, but for as long as I can remember on Halloween night, no matter where I am, who I am with and what else I have going on, I’ve always made time for a horror movie marathon, much to the displeasure of various partners over the years. Some people just can’t handle it when shit gets real.

Meghan: If Halloween is your favorite holiday (or even second favorite holiday), why?

Christian: The movies, the trick-or-treating, the family traditions, the blood, the gore, the serial killers, the rotting corpses rising from graves, what’s not to love?!

Meghan: What are you superstitious about?

Christian: I don’t know if you can call this a superstition, but I’ve always had a thing for the number 27. it follows me, and it seems to come in waves. I might go months without noticing it, and then suddenly it’s everywhere, all around me, as if the universe is trying to tell me something. For example, a few years ago, I was writing an article for a magazine about the 27 Club, all those musicians who have died at 27, when my cousin called me. He said, “I’m just ringing to tell you I’ve moved. Yeah, I live in number 27 now.”

Another time, I was telling a friend about my 27 thing. They laughed and said it was just coincidence. We went into a restaurant, and were given the table number 27. They were like, okay…

Meghan: What/who is your favorite horror monster or villain?

Christian: It has to be Freddy Krueger. What a fantastic concept. A monster that comes to get you THROUGH YOUR DREAMS! I mean, how long can you stay awake? How long can you stay safe? We all know the answer to that because we’ve all seen the movies, right? Often, when I talk about movies 30 or 40 years old, I wonder how a remake or reboot would fare with a big budget and superior special effects. In this case remakes and reboots are not necessary because the original movies are just about perfect.

Meghan: Which unsolved murder fascinates you the most?

Christian: That would be the murder of my wife. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of her. It’s so weird they never found the body. They never looked in the garden, though. Kidding. Gotcha! I’ve never been married. I’m sorry to be so unoriginal, but I’d love to know who Jack the Ripper was. I don’t buy into the stuff about him being the queen’s doctor, but I read a theory recently suggesting that he and H.H. Holmes, he of Chicago’s murder castle, were the same person. The links are tenuous, but that’s the thing, the links to every suspect are tenuous but somebody did it, so one of these mad theories has to be true.

Meghan: Which urban legend scares you the most?

Christian: Ooh! I can tell you a famous Welsh one. Angelystor is a mystical ghostly figure that appears twice a year (Halloween and 31st July) in the village of Llangernyw in Conwy. Standing beneath a 3000-year old Yew tree, the supernatural entity announces the names of all the people who would die in the parish that year. What a guy!

Meghan: Who is your favorite serial killer and why?

Christian: There’s something morally wrong about having a favourite serial killer but you got me. I do have one. I’m going to go with that man H.H. Holmes again. The whole concept fascinates me. He didn’t just moider loads of people, he went to extraordinary lengths to do so and apparently took great pride in his work. He was also a conman, a trickster and a bigamist. I mean, how busy was this guy? He was convicted of 27 killings (there’s that number again, see what I mean?) but may have, and probably did, kill more than 200. That takes dedication.

Meghan: How old were you when you saw your first horror movie? How old were you when you read your first horror book?

Christian: My first horror film was either a little-known zombie flick called The Child, or American Werewolf in London, when I was ten or eleven years old. That’s a movie I must have watched a dozen times since. I didn’t start getting the humour in it until much later, and when I lived in London I made a pilgrimage to Tottenham Court Road underground station where some key scenes were filmed. It literally gave me shivers. It’s harder to remember the first book, but it was probably a Stephen King paperback nabbed from my sister. I’m going to say Pet Sematary.

Meghan: Which horror novel unsettled you the most?

Christian: I had a Richard Laymon phase in my late teens, like I guess most people do. He’s a very underrated writer. Sure, he put out some smut and he had a weird obsession with the word ‘rump,’ but nobody’s perfect! There are two books in particular I could mention, Funland and Body Rides. The most disturbing of the two is the latter. Not in a gruesome kind of way, but in the sense that when you finish it you feel as if Richard Laymon just reached inside your head, pulled out your brain, licked it, kicked it against a wall a few times, then put it back.

Meghan: Which horror movie scarred you for life?

Christian: The original Evil Dead. I remember watching it alone when I was twelve or thirteen and my parents were away for the night, and I was too scared to turn the lights off or go to bed. That creepy refrain, “Dead by dawn!” was running through my head constantly.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween costume?

Christian: I dressed up as Dracula when I was nine. See embarrassing pictorial evidence. I was certainly sullen enough, but I think the hair let me down.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween-themed song?

Christian: The Ramones Howling at the Moon from their 1984 album Too Tough to Die. Punk forever. You’re welcome.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween candy or treat? What is your most disappointing?

Christian: I’m British, and when I was a kid all the kids in my street used to get together and play ducking apples. You know, when you’re blindfolded and have to stick your head in a bucket of water and try to pick out apples with your teeth? Let me tell you, it got quite competitive! There’s no such thing as a disappointing treat.

Meghan: Thanks again for stopping by. Before you go, can you share your favorite Halloween reads and movies?

Christian: Even though I’m a writer, I’m going to give you my Top Three Halloween movies because I think reading more than one book in a night would be a challenge, but we can all squeeze in enough time for a classic horror movie marathon!

  1. The Fog (1980)
  2. The Howling (1981)
  3. Pet Sematary (1989)

FYI, every month I watch a classic horror film and post about it over on my blog. You’re welcome to take a look.

Boo-graphy:
Christian Saunders, who writes fiction as C.M. Saunders, is a freelance journalist and editor from south Wales. His work has appeared in almost 100 magazines, ezines and anthologies worldwide including Fortean Times, the Literary Hatchet, ParABnormal, Fantastic Horror, Haunted MTL, Feverish Fiction and Crimson Streets, and he has held staff positions at several leading UK magazines ranging from Staff Writer to Associate Editor. His books have been both traditionally and independently published, the latest release being Back from the Dead: A Collection of Zombie Fiction.

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Back from the Dead —
A collection of zombie fiction from British journalist and dark fiction writer C.M. Saunders, featuring two complete novellas alongside short stories previously published in the likes of Morpheus Tales and Crimson Streets, plus a brand-new novelette. Also includes an exclusive introduction and artwork by the award-winning Greg Chapman.

Featuring:

Dead of Night: young lovers Nick and Maggie go camping in the woods, only to come face-to-face with a group of long-dead Confederate soldiers who don’t know, or care, that the war is over.

Human Waste: Dan Pallister wakes up one morning to find the zombie apocalypse has started. Luckily, he’s been preparing for it most of his life. He just needs to grab some supplies from the supermarket…

‘Til Death do us Part: When the world as we know it comes to an abrupt end, an elderly couple are trapped in their apartment. They get by as best they can, until they run out of food.

Roadkill: A freelance ambulance crew are plunged into a living nightmare when a traffic accident victim they pick up just won’t stay dead. He has revenge on his mind.

Plague Pit: A curious teenager goes exploring the Welsh countryside one summer afternoon and stumbles across a long-abandoned chapel. What he finds there might change the world, and not for the better.

Dead Men Don’t Bleed: A gumshoe private eye is faced with his most challenging case yet when a dead man walks into his office and asks for help solving his own murder.

Drawn from a variety of sources, all these tales have one thing in common; they explore what might happen if our worst nightmares are realized and people came BACK FROM THE DEAD.